Sigma rule: Potential Amazon SSM Agent Hijacking

Rule

Title

Potential Amazon SSM Agent Hijacking

Status

test

Level

medium

Author

Muhammad Faisal

Date

2023-08-02

File

rules/windows/process_creation/proc_creation_win_ssm_agent_abuse.yml

Commit

ccbb0369507f796db0b0ae6854c8a2be471b9d84

Detects potential Amazon SSM agent hijack attempts as outlined in the Mitiga research report.

Log source

product

windows

category

process_creation

Detection

selection:
    Image|endswith: '\amazon-ssm-agent.exe'
    CommandLine|contains|all:
        - '-register '
        - '-code '
        - '-id '
        - '-region '
condition: selection

False positives (as the rule lists them)

• Legitimate activity of system administrators

Tags

• attack.command-and-control
• attack.persistence
• attack.t1219.002

MITRE ATT&CK ids this rule names

• T1219.002

References

• https://www.mitiga.io/blog/mitiga-security-advisory-abusing-the-ssm-agent-as-a-remote-access-trojan
• https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/amazons-aws-ssm-agent-can-be-used-as-post-exploitation-rat-malware/
• https://www.helpnetsecurity.com/2023/08/02/aws-instances-attackers-access/

Read on 2026-11-03T00:58:21.399Z under licence sigma-drl-1.1@d5f4c36a from https://github.com/SigmaHQ/sigma/blob/ccbb0369507f796db0b0ae6854c8a2be471b9d84/rules/windows/process_creation/proc_creation_win_ssm_agent_abuse.yml